Feelings
Curriculum Area Link:
Personal Development and Mutual Understanding
Strand 1
• Beginning to recognise, name and manage their own feelings and emotions.
• Beginning to recognise and manage strong feelings such as anger, sadness or loss.
Strand 2
• Being aware of what influences their views and feelings and behaviour at home/ school.
1. What is a Tizzy Kind of Day?
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Literacy: Talking
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Discuss the idea of a Tizzy Kind of Day with children. What do they think a Tizzy kind of a Day is?
Resources:
What is a Tizzy Day Visual Prompt
What is a Tizzy Day Video Prompt (below).
Literacy: Writing
Ask the children to write a sentence or two to explain what a Tizzy Day is.
(ie. A Tizzy Day is a day where you feel bad. A Tizzy Day is a day when things go wrong.)
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Resources:
What is a Tizzy Day Writing Frame - differentiated 3 ways.
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The Arts: Art
​​​​Remind the children of the words Heathcliffe used – tizzy and whizzy, twitchy and itchy, whirly and burly, not at himself – what do these words mean?
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Ask the children to draw their own image to represent a Tizzy Day using crayons, colouring pens or even paints.
See resources below to help.
Resources:
What is a Tizzy Day Video Prompt (above)
(reminds the class how Corrina expressed these feelings through art)
What is a Tizzy Day Visual Prompt
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The Arts: Drama
Ask the children to use their bodies to express the tizzy words: tizzy, whizzy, whirly, burly, twitchy, itchy, wobbly:
Printable Tizzy Word Cards.
Work through each word one at a time, asking them to move around the room, to freeze in a frozen image of each word. Ask them to think about where in the body they feel these things. ​
2. Where does a Tizzy Day come from?
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Literacy: Talking
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Ask the children if they remember what happened to Heathcliffe that morning to start off his Tizzy Day.
(He was having breakfast with a friend who flew away. It started to rain and then his breakfast ran away. He ended up sitting in the rain, alone).
Heathcliffe’s Bad Day prompt resources (below) can help the children remember what happened.​
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Powerpoint (The ppt has two options: just pictures; then pictures with sentences.​​
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Video Prompt (below)
​​​Literacy: Reading/ Writing
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Have the children order the events that led to Heathcliffe's Tizzy Day.
Print out Heathcliffe’s Bad Day Ordering Activity differentiated three ways.​
3. Relate a Tizzy Day to ourselves/another person.
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Literacy: Talking and Listening
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Ask the children if any of them have ever had a Tizzy Kind of Day – share something of your own experiences that made you feel a bit tizzy/whizzy and encourage the children to think of things that make them feel a bit not at themselves.*
*You could use one step removed and ask them to notice what might make someone else have a Tizzy Kind of a Day. ​​​​​​​​​​​
4. How can we make our day better?​
In the live performance use sensory/ participation elements to help immerse the children in the story.
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You could explore these after watching the full film together, or you could pause the film (narration lines in italics and time stamps for guidance) and do these activities along with Wilbur and Heathcliffe.
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Link to A Tizzy Kind of a Day video page (opens in new window).
The Forest:
Film soundtrack line: Let’s go to the forest, he said. You see he knew that the forest is always at ease with itself. (Pause around 1.48mins)​​​
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This sensory experience is about bringing the children into their bodies and connecting them to nature and their own sense of touch.
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A simple way to bring the children into the forest (either inside or outside) is to give them something natural (we use a pinecone, but a leaf would be fine) and get them to touch and feel it.
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If you can take them outside and let the children explore an outdoor space where they can find something natural themselves to touch and feel even better, but in the classroom will work too.
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We usually ask them to touch the ground with their palms as well.
Listen
Film soundtrack line: My head is all whirly and twirly and buzzy and burly. Shhh listen... (From 2.03 mins – don’t pause as sound on film)
We listen to the sounds of the birds singing on the soundtrack.
If you want to extend this and you have a place outside you can go then you could take the children to listen to real birds after the film.
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See if the children can hear any birds.
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Challenge them to see how many different birds they can hear singing.
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Do the birds have different sounds?
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Can they mimic what they hear?
Move like the trees
Film soundtrack line: Wilbur showed Heathcliffe what he’d learned from the trees. (Pause around 2.45m)
In the live performance we do a short movement together.
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We plant our feet firmly in the ground - like roots of a tree.
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We lift our arms over our heads like branches, breathing in.
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We breath out as we sway our arms to the left.
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We breath in as we bring our arms back to centre.
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We breathe out as we sway them to the right.
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We repeat this a few times, swaying with our bodies – like trees in the wind.
Let it go
Film soundtrack line: Flowy places are good when you want to let things go.
(pause at 3.24m)
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We ask the children to think of something that might be bothering them
(if they can’t that’s OK).
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We give them a leaf.
(You could couple this with a walk outside to find a leaf, use a material one, a paper one or just imagine one.)
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We ask them to whisper to the leaf what they want to let go of (if they can’t think of anything, they can whisper a thank you to the leaf).
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We then drop the leaves together onto the floor (you could drop them outside and let the wind take them – if they’re real leaves, or if you had a stream nearby even better – or you could make a bowl/ basket in the classroom to let things go into).
Breathe
Film soundtrack line: Let’s breathe together. (around 3.47mins – you don’t need to pause)
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We breathe in and out together along with Wilbur and Heathcliffe in the film.
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You could make this something you do together at the beginning of lessons. Or when the children need to calm down. You can use this Breathing video to do this.
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​​​​​​​​​Extension Ideas
Ask the children if they can think of any other ways to make themselves feel better? You could try these out as a class and make a class list/ display.
Literacy: Writing
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Use the Wilbur’s Ways Writing Frame to come up with a shared list of ways to feel better if you’re having a tizzy day – you can display this in your class or children can make one themselves.
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